Peter Bodo: Sam Querrey

The U.S. Open Series kicked off this weekend in Atlanta, and North American fans already have something to moan about: Sam Querrey, the No. 2 American behind Atlanta top seed and No. 12 John Isner, was defeated by Dudi Sela in the second round by the lopsided score of 6-2, 6-4.

Querrey is 6-foot-6, and he has a flamethrower for a serve. Sela is 5-foot-9, and he has a funny first name.

This wasn’t exactly the way most U.S. tennis fans wanted to see Querrey set forth on the heavily publicized “road to the U.S. Open.” The USTA and other American operators have been getting a lot of grief for failing to produce elite players in the wake of the Sampras-Agassi era. But you can’t blame the infrastructure of American tennis this time.

The reality is that the establishment led by the USTA has done an awful lot to create friendly conditions for homegrown players as they prepare for the final Grand Slam event of the year.

Most of the credit for creating the U.S. Open Series goes to the USTA’s former CEO of Professional Tennis, Arlen Kantarian. At the time, Kantarian was thinking the tennis world could be more or less divided into spheres of influence, with something like self-sustaining mini-circuits leading up to each of the Grand Slams -- sort of like the way the European and PGA golf tours are organized.

It didn’t take a genius to see the possibilities. After all, a de facto Roland Garros series already existed in Europe. It did, however, take a visionary to try to implement the vital changes that would make the series worth its name in the U.S. market. Those changes included securing a comprehensive television package, which Kantarian did in partnership with ESPN.

Since then, the series concept has taken a beating despite the continued success of the Euroclay circuit in May and June. Given the demands of the present-day game, the tendency of the elite players is to reduce the number of tournaments they play in advance of any major. Novak Djokovic, who doesn’t play unless his commitment to the ATP’s mandatory Masters 1000 tournaments requires it, may be the face of the future.

The idea of the tune-up tournament sounds almost quaint now. The only exception is that quick transition from clay to grass, when more players feel the need to have a trial run. But Djokovic even skips those. And with Wimbledon moving from the last week of June into the first week of July next year, the players get more time to rest and/or practice on grass.

So the U.S. Open Series, which consists of 10 tournaments (five each for the ATP and WTA), is on shaky footing if you take the global view. But on the brighter side, it has evolved into an excellent training ground and laboratory for domestic players.

Isner knows this, and he appreciates it more than most. He’s entered in every one of the men’s U.S. Open Series events and plans to take full advantage of whatever boost he can get in the rankings. Besides, one of the events (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) is in his home state, and his participation so dominates the event that they could just as soon call it the Isner Open.

All this could prove valuable spadework for an as-yet-undetected resurgence in the American men’s game. When the players are ready, the game will be, too. It also helps make the U.S. Open Series seem more relevant to the overall game than it would if the intent were simply to create, for commercial purposes, a series of linked tournaments at a time when top players are interested in playing less, not more.

All we need now is for a few American players to step up. If and when that happens, the U.S. Open Series may end up looking like a helpful and successful idea.

Here’s how bad it is for the U.S. team in the Davis Cup: The squad lost in the first round of World Group play this past weekend to Great Britain, a nation that had not won a single WG match (a “tie” in Davis Cup patois) in 30 years.

Not bad enough for you? Try this: The previous time a visiting British team beat the U.S., we were just three years into the new century -- the 20th century (1903).

As U.S. Davis Cup coach Jim Courier said sardonically, when he was asked Sunday how all of that felt: "It feels great to be alive in 2014. We certainly don't feel a lot of kinship to the last team that lost to the Brits on American soil since they've been dead a long time."

The man most responsible for the breakthrough win by the Brits in San Diego was Jamie Ward, a 26-year-old English journeyman ranked No. 175 in the world. His upset of Sam Querrey in the second match (or "rubber") ensured that as long as heavily favored Andy Murray -- by far the best player on either team in this matchup -- won his two singles matches, the Brits could salt away the tie.

Granted, John Isner is the highest ranking U.S. player (No. 13 in the ATP rankings), and he had to withdraw from the team at the 11th hour because of a continuing right ankle injury. He was replaced by Donald Young, who got blown to pieces by Murray in the opening match in San Diego. But that was just a preview of “ugly.” Ward then recovered from a terrible start to beat Querrey in four sets -- the final one so dismal that Querrey won just one game.

This latest insult to the great tradition of U.S. tennis seems emblematic of our woes in the larger picture. It just seems that the U.S. never could get traction in the effort to find Grand Slam contenders to pick up where players like Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Courier and Andy Roddick left off. Young, once a prodigy, has become just another struggling ATP journeyman. Ryan Harrison, another highly touted youngster, is flailing around outside the ATP top 100. And Isner and Querrey, though solid ATP pros, just haven’t produced the impressive wins. They’ve been to a grand total of one Grand Slam quarterfinal between them (Isner, US Open, 2011).

The Davis Cup gives us a pretty good lens through which to view this struggle. Though U.S. fortunes were already crumbling during the Roddick-James Blake-Mardy Fish years, the U.S. was at least competitive in Davis Cup play, and it won the event in 2007. Granted, the singles guys got tremendous help from Bob and Mike Bryan, the superb doubles specialists who have played an outsized role in the consistent success of the American squad.

Isner and Querrey were the heirs apparent in singles, and they were gifted the Bryan brothers to take some of the pressure off (the Bryans did their job in San Diego, winning the doubles). Isner and Querrey made a promising debut as the singles players in a World Group first-round tie in March 2010 against Serbia. At one point that year, both were ranked in the top 20 and considered potential future stars. The U.S. lost that tie, but there was no shame in it -- the tie was in Belgrade, on red clay, and the Serbs had Novak Djokovic.

Fish saved the U.S. squad from the humiliation of falling out of the World Group later that fall by winning two singles and teaming with Isner to take the doubles in the playoff round later that year (only the winners in the playoff round remain in the World Group, tennis’ major league). In subsequent years, Roddick, the Bryan brothers and Isner kept the United States in the World Group. The squad even made the semifinals in 2012 before losing the away tie to Spain.

Isner emerged as an excellent Davis Cup player. Unfortunately, Querrey did not. His singles record has fallen to 3-6, if you discount two meaningless dead rubbers (those are matches played after the five-rubber tie is already decided).

The Davis Cup mirrors Querrey’s day-to-day struggles on tour. He’s down to No. 55 now, but he certainly has time to get his game together before the Davis Cup playoff round in September. If he can’t manage to improve, though, the U.S. -- still the most successful of all Davis Cup nations -- could very well stumble out of the World Group for the first time since 1987.

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ABOUT THIS BLOG

Peter Bodo

Peter Bodo has been covering tennis for over 35 years, mostly recently for ESPN. He is a former WTA Writer of the Year and the author of numerous books, including the classic The Courts of Babylon and the New York Times bestseller (with Pete Sampras), A Champion's Mind. His new book on the 1975 Wimbledon final between Arthur Ashe and Jimmy Connors will be out in June of 2015.